Getting There

Hi again! I have a bit of downtime at the office right now, so I figured I'd write Post #2. As promised, I'll describe the logistics of setting up travel in Bolivia.

Here's a picture of the almost 5,000 mile journey I'll be making on FRIDAY!

I've actually had it pretty easy compared to someone who would be planning a trip on their own, since everyone at Mano a Mano has visited Bolivia at least once. They know how best to interact with the Honorary Consul (be very thorough, bring extra passport photos just in case yours are the wrong size, and feel free to talk about her pet cats - who are adorable!), which flights are the best, which medicines are actually necessary, and other helpful travel tips.

Los Primeros Pasos

I decided I was actually going to travel to Bolivia at the end of May, when I started my internship. Over spring break, when I had been home from Baltimore, I stopped by the office to discuss what I'd be doing during my time at Mano a Mano. I (half-jokingly, because I never thought my parents would actually be okay with me going) mentioned that I'd be willing to go to Bolivia if they wanted to send me. Dana said that they would be happy to work something out, so I brought it up with my mom once I got home. We didn't really talk more about it, but when I got home again after spring semester ended, I asked if it would be possible. To my surprise, my mom said that she was completely on board! And later, when I booked my plane tickets, she actually encouraged me to spend more time there than just the one week I had been planning!

After talking to Dana and Nate at the office, along with two volunteers who also wanted to travel to Bolivia this summer, I booked my plane tickets for August 2nd-16th.  I did this before I had an approved visa, before I went to the travel clinic, and before I had spent much time at Mano a Mano. It was pretty scary to push the "submit" button to pay, but I'm so glad that I did - I could not be more excited to go!

As I mentioned before, the other two volunteers (a mother-daughter duo named Joyce and Alexa, if you're curious) and I will be hanging out with a group of students from Oxford. Check out their website if you want - they're part of an awesome student group!

Here's a picture of some of the Oxford Development Abroad students at the Training and Demonstration Center last year. This year, there will be six of them!

Las Preparaciones

Let me tell you, going to Bolivia is definitely not as easy as going to Baltimore every semester for school. After buying my tickets, I had to go through the process of applying for a volunteer visa. It was very important to fill everything out PERFECTLY, and to make sure I was filling out the correct forms perfectly. If you want to see the forms, feel free to look at them here. Fun fact: when I left my house to go visit the consul and get everything approved, I almost forgot my passport in the copier! Luckily, I remembered before I got out of my driveway. I (thankfully) was approved to go, and got a bunch of cool stickers on my passport! 

This is similar to what my passport looks like now - all the stamps are really pretty up close!

In addition to getting a visa, I had to visit the travel clinic to get some shots and medications. After that experience, I have determined that the purpose of a travel clinic is to deter people from traveling. The first thing that happened when I walked into the doctor's office? I was handed an 11-page packet and three informational pamphlets about the possible problems I might face in Bolivia. In addition to malaria, yellow fever, rabies, typhoid, and hepatitis (of all varieties), there was also information about what to do if I get attacked while making a phone call, what to do if my taxi driver turns out to be a scam artist attempting to kidnap me, what to do if I find myself in the middle of a drug confrontation, and a lot of other circumstances. Although that packet was scary, I've calmed down a bit since I first saw it. I got shots for yellow fever and typhoid (which actually didn't hurt much at the time, but made my arms REALLY sore later) and prescriptions for malaria pills, altitude sickness pills, and pills to cure digestive problems. I'm hoping not to need those last ones. The pills have some side effects that don't have me too excited: the altitude sickness pills can apparently cause dizziness, shortness of breath, and tingling in the fingers and toes (all of which are symptoms of altitude sickness......), and the malaria pills cause extremely vivid dreams and sometimes night terrors. So that's great. BUT, I know it will all be completely worth it, and I'm really not expecting to have many problems at all.

As a final preparation, I have to sign some release papers for Mano a Mano. It's hard being famous.

¡Hasta luego!

Alright, so I'm going to get back to work now. After all, I leave on Friday! I'm spending tomorrow and half of Wednesday in the office researching unconventional sources of funding and keeping track of donations, and then the rest of the week packing and making a million photocopies of my visa (to keep in all my pockets during the trip). And, of course, I'll be watching Part One of the Bachelorette finale tonight! TEAM CHRIS! 

I leave you with my new friend from this weekend. I met him at the Cleveland Zoo while visiting my grandparents. 

My brother and I had fun making up what the animals looked like they were thinking. We think this guy seems pretty over his job, but is being a really great sport about everything.

Necessary Introductions

Hello and welcome to my blog! I'm Sami, a soon-to-be junior at Johns Hopkins University and current intern at Mano a Mano International Partners. I'm starting this blog for a couple of reasons: 1) to share my experience as I travel with Mano a Mano to Bolivia; 2) to keep track of it for myself - like a diary, but with embedded pictures; and 3) just to talk! This first post is just to give all of you lovely readers (even if there are only a few of you...) an introduction into Mano a Mano. It's an amazing organization that I want the entire world to know about - and I'll try to keep it short and sweet, don't worry.

Mano a Mano

Our logo!

Here are the basics: Mano a Mano was founded in 1994 by these two seriously amazing people: 

Joan and Segundo! Aren't they cute?

Joan was a Peace Corps volunteer stationed in Bolivia, where she met Segundo, whose family lived in a rural Quechua community there. When Joan came back to the States, she brought Segundo with her, and they got married! Segundo was working for Northwest Airlines, which allowed him to make frequent trips back to visit his family in Bolivia. One of his brothers was working at a severely under-resourced clinic, and Segundo always brought him medical supplies that he collected here in the Twin Cities. Joan and Segundo are some of the most personable people you could ever meet (one of the first days I was working in the office, we had freshly-baked cookies from Joan!), and the response they began getting from locals was overwhelming. Bolivia is the second-poorest country in the western hemisphere (behind Haiti - and if you want to read about some cool stuff happening there, check out my friend Brittany's blog), so the supplies were always accepted with gratitude. Thus, Joan and Segundo decided to found Mano a Mano so that they could ship more supplies as a non-profit organization. Since then, Mano a Mano has shipped over 4 million pounds of medical supplies! What's even more impressive is that all of these supplies were otherwise headed to landfills - so, not only are we providing critical and often literally life-saving equipment in Bolivia, but we're also eliminating a huge chunk of waste in Minnesota! Definitely a win-win.

These wheelchairs arrived in Bolivia with our last shipment.

So, as if that weren't impressive enough, Mano a Mano has expanded at a phenomenal rate since its founding. We now construct clinics and schools in rural areas, provide training to the medical professionals and teachers who staff them, build clean housing and sanitation infrastructure for these professionals and the community, construct roads and runways, manage an aviation program with four of our own planes (and our own hangar) that provides transportation for patients in need of inaccessible emergency care, and build water reservoirs to allow farmers to water their crops year-round. All in all, we have over 300 Mano a Mano projects in Bolivia, and none have failed. We work with local leaders, municipal leaders, community members, and anyone else applicable to ensure that the projects will succeed.

This is an adorable little Bolivian baby getting a check-up in one of the Mano a Mano clinics!

Here's a tiny little baby being flown to a bigger hospital in one of Bolivia's larger cities - and check out how cool our planes are! 

This cutie is showing her appreciation for a book donated by a local Minnesota school and delivered by Mano a Mano volunteers - she'll probably read it at her brand new school!

Celebrating the flowing water and the promise it brings to these communities

Every year, Medtronic uses the month of June to emphasize volunteering and giving back to the community. This year, they partnered with Mano a Mano to give their employees the opportunity to take some time off from their normal work and to spend it volunteering with us!

These are some volunteers from Medtronic's philanthropy team. They helped us sort and pack medical supplies for shipment, start a garden for our office space, and package school supplies!

For three weeks in June, Dana (our awesome Office Manager) and I were working at different Medtronic locations around the Twin Cities so that volunteers could help out without leaving the building! Here, they're making school supplies packets we send to the kiddos in Bolivia. And one of the best parts of those three weeks was the Medtronic cafeterias. Bonus: their catering is done by Bon Appetit - yep, the same people coming to Hopkins next year! 

Off to Cochabamba

So, other than helping out with the Medtronic activities, I've had a lot to do at the Mano a Mano office! I've been working on creating some databases to manage our grant application history, keeping track of donations we receive, doing some general office management, and hanging out with my friend Tigresa!

Tigresa is Dana's dog - she was adopted from Panama and is now our unofficial office mascot! Here, she's showing off some of the Bolivia-made crafts we sell.

Okay, so now to the actual purpose of this blog: my trip to Bolivia. I'm flying to Cochabamba on August 2nd and will be there for two weeks! The first week will be spent touring the Mano a Mano headquarters, checking out the new agricultural demonstration center to train rural farmers, sightseeing in the city, and adjusting to the altitude (11,000 feet above sea level - yikes!). For at least the first week, I'll be working with a group of students from Oxford University (yes, the one in England) who are going to the demonstration center to build a couple cisterns and do some other construction stuff there. I'm hopefully also going to get the chance to travel to some of the projects in the more rural areas - I want to meet some cute kids! 

Anyway, thanks for checking this out. Stay tuned for more info on travel logistics and all the reasons I'm terrified to go to Bolivia by myself (wow - that doesn't actually sound all that fun to read... I'll throw in some jokes or something, don't worry)!